


Lunacy

by DelphiPsmith



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Peter Pan - J. M. Barrie
Genre: Drabble, Friendship, Gen, Hogwarts Era, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-06
Updated: 2010-09-06
Packaged: 2017-10-11 13:06:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/112722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DelphiPsmith/pseuds/DelphiPsmith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Luna presents an interesting theory on shadows, and reveals a family connection to a notable character.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lunacy

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired in part by Joseph Stroud's poem, [Night in Day](http://www.americanlifeinpoetry.org/columns/220.html). Written for [hp_uk_meetup](http://community.livejournal.com/hp_uk_meetup/).

Luna drifted down the stairs, humming a song about goblins. It was quite a nice little song, and the tune was catchy, so she wasn't surprised that the Wrackspurts had left it for her when they passed through her head earlier that morning.

She hopped on one leg down the first three steps, then on the other leg down the next three, then went backwards down the last seven. You had to do that on days that fell on a full moon and were a multiple of 8, otherwise the Sloons would eat the toes off all your socks leaving you useless tubes of wool. Of course, then you could turn the tubes into sweaters for Eccles Worms (the ones whose tongues poke the holes in Eccles cakes). But that was a chancy business, as the worms didn't really care for any color but purple, and Luna had very few purple socks.

Still humming, thinking about pudding for lunch, she skipped down the hall and around the corner, running BANG into Harry and knocking them both to the ground.

Harry lay there blinking for a moment. "Ow."

"Are you all right?" Luna asked.

"Yeah, sure." Harry rose and brushed off the seat of his trousers. "Are you OK?"

"I didn't knock your shadow off, did I?" she asked anxiously.

Harry raised both eyebrows. Accustomed as he had become to Luna's strange statements, this was a bit much. "My...sorry, what was that again?"

"They keep coming loose, I know," Luna said sympathetically. "I have the same problem. My father had a friend who completely lost his once – it got knocked loose during a Quidditch match and he didn't stop to pick it up, so it got away. He had a terrible time with crows for the rest of his life."

Entirely at sea, Harry stared at her. "Crows? Why crows?"

"Because your shadow's where you store all your memories of black things, of course. So when a crow flew by, he didn't know what it was. He used to get very frustrated with himself. We told him over and over, but with nowhere to store the memory he couldn't keep it in his head. He had the same trouble with watermelon seeds, but since he didn't like watermelon he didn't run into them as often."

"Ah, right. I should have known. Obvious, really." Harry paused. "So, just out of curiosity, what does one do when one's shadow gets knocked off?"

Luna gazed at him in mild surprise. "Sew it back on, of course. Just there, on the soles of the feet. I learned how from my great-grandmother, Granny Wendy. She had had quite a bit of practice with a boy she knew when she was a little girl."

Harry grinned at her. He couldn't help it. She was completely mental, of course, but great fun. "You're wonderful, Luna, you know that?"

She turned slightly pink. "Thank you, Harry."


End file.
